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Simple GUI frontend for commandline programs
TL;DR: A program that calls either the "--help" or "help" command of a cmd program, and reads the specially formatted human readable output to generate a quick and simple GUI. This is optionally extended by a GUISpec file, that provides extra definition about each settings. | |
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There is many command line apps, which while is nice to
use when creating batch scripts... is annoying to use for
daily stuff. Especially when you haven't use such a
program in a while, so you have to relearn how to craft
the right command line commands/switches/filepaths
(stuffing
up a few times before getting it right).
I understand why most coders just frankly don't do GUI
for these super useful tools. GUIs are bloody annoying to
code.
E.g. diff-pdf is a command line program that accepts 2
pdf filepath, and compaires it visually. Very useful...
except you have to hunt the filepath for both pdfs... not
very fun in windows. So i created a basic python script
that uses tkinter to bring up two file browser prompt to
make life easier.
What I really would like to see, is some way to quickly
write up a minimal gui for any command line programs.
START of E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G.
E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G.
## About ##
All comment will actually be displayed to the user etc,
and should be rendered in markdown, could perhaps
store the entire helpfile like this
INTERFACE SPEC:
---------------------
option1 = select{
'a' : # this comment will explains what option a is on
hover
'b' : # what this option does
'c' : # and what this option does as well
}
option2 = range: 4 --> 9 # Comments about this
argument
file = filepathbrowser: '*.pdf' # Maybe comment that only
.pdf is accepted
run <-- helloworld.exe [--option1] [--option2] ((file))
------------
result --> { # Could be regex matched perhaps
0 : # Program exited without error
-1 : # error somewhere....
"hello world" : # All good
}
END of E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G.
E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G. E.G.
Where the above is rendered as a simple GUI, with two
optional select and range arguments, as well as a
mandatory filepath
The above is just a quick illustration of the concept, and
is not how the coding should actually look like. If
anything, I would envision it to be more like making a
HTML page.
The idea is that this is both an 'instant GUI interface' as
well as a 'help file', e.g. can have extra tabs that serves
as documention for the commandline program.
In fact, if possible, the whole 'GUI helper code' should be
as human readable to a non coder as possible.
GUI FRONTEND SCRIPT FOR DIFF-PDF (guiDiffPDF)
https://github.com/.../diff-pdf/issues/14 Just a quick python script to solve this minor but very annoying issue of no GUI frontend for diff-pdf [mofosyne, Jul 26 2014]
Learnable Programming
http://worrydream.c...earnableProgramming Points out why GUI are easier than text. (Hint: context) [mofosyne, Jul 26 2014]
Python - Common Gateway Integration
https://docs.python.../2/library/cgi.html All your GUIs are belong to us. [zen_tom, Jul 29 2014]
Half Baked Idea: Simple GUI format for command line
http://www.reddit.c...t_for_command_line/ [mofosyne, Aug 03 2014]
[link]
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sadly the Internet has swallowed any mention of
Soft & GUI CommandLine, which I developed for
this purpose in 1991 |
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Still got the copy somewhere to share? :S Maybe we can learn something from your effort. |
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How does it work? And if you would write it again, how would you do it differently? |
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// except you have to hunt the filepath for both
pdfs // |
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You do realize that the command windows in
Windows support drag and drop. If you drag a file
from an explorer window and drop it on the
command window, the full path gets "typed" in for
you. |
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Also look up tab completion, "quick edit mode",
and practice use of F3 and F8. These can help
make your usage of the command line much more
efficient. |
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Although I admit that for many people they
wouldn't use the command line often enough to
remember the tricks to use it efficiently, so they
are better off with a GUI. |
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I'll bun this idea because it allows people to have
their GUI while allowing the program to still
operate well from the command line for scripting
and use by weirdos like me. |
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Hmm, I've seen various libraries making it easy to
extract arguments for the command line in
standard formats. It seems like it would be fairly
simple to expand such a library so that if there are
no parameters specified at all, it would launch a
window to collect file names and parameters. The
library might need to be enhanced slightly to
associate help text with each parameter. As an
added bonus, it could auto-generate the command
line associated with the current parameters
specified in the GUI, that could be copied to a
script. |
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Alternately (and maybe more related to your idea)
a lot of command line apps use fairly common
syntax for specification in the help text. It might
not be much of a stretch to have a program that
automatically calls the program with "/?" and "-h"
(the two most common parameters to get full help
text), and then parses the help text to auto-
generate a GUI. Obviously it won't work on all
programs, but if it became popular, people writing
command line apps might more often adhere to
the standards that would allow this program to
work well. |
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Ah, you got a very nice idea there 'scad mientist', I
think its worth of a separate half bakery post. |
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However I would wonder how one would use it
normally. |
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(1) Should perhaps all command line program
when clicked in desktop, be opened with a GUI
prompt (after having it's help file parsed)? (edit:
actually I think that wont work) |
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(2) Or should it be a right click 'open as GUI'? |
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(3) Or should it be a separate 'special short cut'
that
goes "GUIConstructor CmdProgToUse.exe" |
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Perhaps the best approach would be to use (3)
approach, but also allow for an optional GUIspec
file like I showed in the description. |
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e.g. "GUIConstructor CmdProg.exe
CmdProg.GUIspec" |
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As for why? Because the "-h" while useful, is often
sparse to keep the filesize down. So a separate
help documentation is often needed. |
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It's pretty simple to support both options (2) and
(3), and good to allow running programs this way
without having to set them up, but also allowing
quick double-click launching for frequently used
programs. |
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I'm thinking, that the first time, an app is launched
with a right-click. It would attempt to parse the
help text and auto-generate the dialog. There
would then need to be an extra configuration
button in the corner that would allow
customization (modifying the GUISpec, or some
more GUI-like method). There could also be the
option to create a quick-launch shortcut. If an
app had previously been configured, right clicking
and launching would automatically used the stored
GUISpec. |
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I think the auto-parsing is an enhancement, not a
replacement for your GUISpec. I'm guessing that
best case it might work tolerably well on 50% of
existing programs. |
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And of course you could create a library of
GUISpec for popular apps, and app authors could
release theirs with GUISpecs if they wanted. |
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Would it be wise to centralized 'GUISpec' (as a fallback if there is no local GUISpec?) online? |
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If so, how do we ID which GUISpec to use with which program. Can I just use the filename? |
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(What I'm thinking, is a wiki that the GUIGenerator can read and grab any GUISpec that matches the file name of the program) |
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Sorry, did I hear people talking about the command
line and Windows in the same context? Windows
has no command line. |
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//I would envision it to be more like making a HTML
page// See this I think is the resolution to the
problem, right there. You can write python to read
inputs and generate text output - so why not tweak it
to read in HTLM POST inputs, and send the output into
an html page format that can be presented by your web
server. OK, so it means configuring a web-server but
most computers/oses these days come with a mini apache
up and running for free - or perhaps turn-onnable with
not too much effort. Get python included into your
cgi-bin and you'll be creating distributable GUIs
before you know it. Handsome. |
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If you have a centralized location for 4th party
GUISpecs, be sure to watch out for malicious ones.
Those would need to be keyed off of filename and a
checksum or hash. If there's no exact match, allow
the user to test using one with the same filename
in cases there was a minor revision change that
didn't change the parameters. |
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[YTK] what are you talking about. A quick search
seems to indicate that they have made a nominal
effort to hide the command prompt in Windows 8,
but it is still there. Or are you claiming that
cmd.exe does not qualify as a "REAL" command
prompt? |
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Is it just me or does windows 8 seem eerily a lot like 3.1? |
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//Is it just me or does windows 8 seem eerily a lot
like 3.1?// |
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I don't think so, Windows 3.1 was a resounding
success with lots of interest from the business
community, so much so that Windows became the
de-facto desktop environment across most of the
world for pretty much an entire generation.
Windows 8 is geared towards confusing your Gran. |
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I am aware of the existence of CMD.EXE. I repeat: Windows
has no command line. |
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CMD.EXE is a tool used to practice the skill of shouting
monosyllabic grunts to a brain-damaged chimpanzee at the
top of your lungs. |
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//windows has no command line
Next thing you'll be saying that the computer is not
inside the display. |
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Additional benefits of this approach beyond Simple
GUI. |
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By providing a standard way to define possible valid
input, and outputs. This also provides an opportunity
to create a visual environment, where you can chain
different programs together in a visual manner (As
the input and output are well defined). Think of it as
an API of sort. |
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